Crippled Caddis

Perfect! For the following reasons: 1. Due to the mass of the material itself fiberglass loads better for short, precise casts. 2. Fiberglass is 'tougher', allowing you to buck brush in places you'd never dare to take your expensive toys without a worry penalty. 3. Fish are more fun on the more responsive medium. 4. The peace of mind and enhanced pleasure of the fishing experience just knowing that you aren't going to be out a significant chunk of change if you do destroy the gear. 5. The more 'laid-back', less demanding timing of the rod, allowing you to slow down and get into the rhythm of the natural world around you.

Flysmallie, That little rod may well cast about anything you put on it but it WILL have a decided line preference that will make it a sweetheart. So try everything you can get your hands on until the rod tells you "YES"! And for goodness sake slow down and let the rod cast! Fiberglass, like Olde Phartes, doesn't like to be rushed, but if you'll let them dictate the pace you can get some great work out of them.;o)

So far I appear to be the sole maverick. Some things never change.;o) While I can't seem to wind a spinning reel with my right hand there's some sort of mental block that prevents me winding a flyreel with my left hand in a predictable direction of rotation. Go figure!;o( Or it might have something to do with @ 60 years of experience doing it that way.;o) Too old to change and frankly I don't find it a problem. I think the logic has been over-thought. SIO3 sez: <I guess cars with the steering on the right don't hold up either.> Never owned any old British sports cars with Lucas electrical systems have ya?;o)

Ham, Give Schneiders Rods in Mt. Home a call and tell him what you wanta do. He's been building rods longer than a lot of us have been on earth so I'm betting he's built almost exactly what you're wanting and can build it for you or sell you the components. When I was there @ a month ago he had some flyrod blanks near the door at close-out prices that looked good and we very inexpensive. CC

<Going pretty good... At least everyone tells me it is.---just seems slower than I thought.> Hang in there and, above all, keep doing the PT! <Cindy and Amanda went to Mammoth today and I chose not to go. Started to let you know and come on over, but since I can't fish, just didn't seem worth the effort.> Shoulda done it anyway----we coulda just sat in the parking lot at Dam 3, kibitzed with the fishers and each other and laughed at the human frailties witnessed.;o) <She's gonna be a momma around August, so maybe grandpa will have a fishing bud soon... Well, in a few years.> So how many flyrods has the incipient heir had bought in his name so far? <Russ is wanting to fish the Spring, so before long he and I will hook up and head that way. I'll let you know when and you can show us where you've got those bigguns tied up.> I'll keep looking for 'em! <By the way... Any Walleye's coming out?> Saw a pic of a 17#+ caught a few months ago but no recent reports.

How's the PT going? When you gonna be ready to fish the Spring? Could I just swap my firstborn even up? The wife & I had 'breakfast with Lacey' a few weeks ago. When I told her I knew you she promptly registered signs of sympathy. Nice kid!

Whoops! Forgot. Congratulations on still having your Dad for a fishing partner! Go often, make heavy deposits in your 'memory savings account' while you may. It will make you rich beyond measure later. And the 7 1/2', 3 wt. you mentioned----is it one of the Dorber E-Rod-2 series by any chance? I have one of them that so delighted me after test-casting that I went back and bought it a few weeks later after I discovered I couldn't get it out of my mind even tho I already had a nice little Cabellas 3 piece of the same size. FWIW< Jeff at Dorber keeps telling me on the phone that I must come over and try out their new 'Ultra Weave' series that he sez casts exactly like bamboo at a third the weight. He knows I like traditional actions but I'm almost afraid to try one for fear I'd hafta have one and they aren't as reasonably priced as their other offerings.

If it hasn't worn off with other data there should be a 3 capital letter code on the butt just above the handle that will tell those 'in the know' the month and year of production. Go to the fiberglas rod board at the URL listed in post # 11 on this thread. Click on the 'Collecting Fiberglass Rods' board and run a search for your model #. That oughta do it. If it doesn't then post the question with the subject line of 'Shakespeare question for gaddis' as he is the authority on Shakespeare. Be sure to list the date code if it still exists.

Don't worry about breaking it---it's fiberglass! Fish it to honor your father. I'm sure he'd be pleased to know his rod is being appreciated and being used for the reason he acquired it. Just whisper "This one's for you Dad" each time you bring a fish to hand.

<All you gents and gentle lasses should dust off those back of the closet glass rods and give them a second look. You may have found a new passion.> Getting the head ready first may be of great importance. If you've been fishing graphite all your life or for a very long time your initial reaction will most probably be that "it doesn't feel right". You have to slow down your own internal clock to be able to enjoy the more relaxed casting stroke. Let the rod tell you what it wants, give it to it and let it cast. There is a thread so applicable to this over on John Wilson's Ark/Mo board that everyone should read it. <http://p222.ezboard.com/Half-the-Battle/fflyfishingarkansasandmissourifrm14.showMessage?topicID=3063.topic> It will make you a better fisherman whatever sort of rod you might be using.

OK, I admit it. It was me exhorting Dano to take the plunge into fiberglass rods. I started fishing them again several years ago and found myself wondering why we had abandoned such a wonderful fishing tool so abruptly. I soon found the original fiberglass rod site (since kaput) on Clark's board and dived headfirst into learning all I could about a product I grew up with. To make a long story as short as possible it is my belief that it was fueled by the increased casting distances that tournament casters were able to achieve with graphite. The advertising advantages of that were immediately apparent to manufacturers and they, and their rod designers who had a new, exciting medium to express their craftsmanship, jumped on the graphite wagon and soon produced a demand from the average flyfisher who could fantasize about casting like Steve Rajeff. (Forget it---I've had the humbling experience of casting with him ) The snowball mushroomed and soon the criteria for flyrods had morphed from how well a rod fished to how well it would do in the parking lot competition at the local flyshop. (I recall that well as I was working at an Orvis shop in a major metropolitan area at the time) We've now inducted a generation into the ranks and indoctrinated another who have been trained by advertising and encouraged by their peers to think the sole deciding factor on a rod purchase is the modulus of the base material. But there are always a few who think for themselves despite the social anathema it can bring down upon their heads and a few of us were old enough to recall when just casting was fun of itself. We still thought the choice of rod should be predicated on how it fished rather than how far it would cast. And we thought it should be a pleasant experience. So some of us regressed to "the lovely reed", bamboo, (just witness the resurgence!) and some, like myself, gravitated to a more affordable (and familiar) medium. A significant percentage of the retro crowd discovered the peace of mind wrought by the fact that fiberglass can be drug through heavy brush, beaten against the rocks, used as a wading staff and survive falls, abuse and freaks of nature so much better than anything else that their precious cane rods became closet queens to be drug out to be admired, perhaps even fished in a civilized setting a time or two a year for the justification it provides and then, once more, be relegated to closetdom for safekeeping and monetary appreciation while we gravitated back to the fiberglass workhorses that provide so much peace of mind and fishing pleasure. (Olde Phartes do tend to be long-winded ) And some, again very much like myself, can't help prosylitizing (sp.?) when they find a new epiphany. Most of the time this year when I arrive at a fishing site I find myself reaching for a little 6', 4 wt. I rolled on an old UL spinning blank a few winters ago. Once I found the line it wanted it became a willing companion that seems to seek to please me more with each cast. My accuracy has taken a quantum leap (you can correct casts while they are taking place) and my ancient and abused body doesn't grouch at me quite as much at the end of a session. But mostly I just find the entire experience more pleasing. So why not spread the good news? If it will copy in to the post try taking a Look at the 'Fiberglass Flyrodders' site. http://p097.ezboard.com/bfiberglassflyrodder If it doesn't work just Google it by that name. Check out the various boards including the building glass rods board which has several long threads concerning the rods that can be built VERY inexpensively on some UL spinning rod blanks that sell for under $10. (I picked up mine at Schneider Rods in Mt. Home) See if it sounds like fun by reading before you take the plunge. Then consider Danos' point that a retro rod begs for a retro reel and see what you have buried in your inactive pile of gear. Even if you splurge it won't cost a lot to try it to see if you like it if you'll avoid the custom builders until you know if it's your 'meat'. And if you find yourself enjoying the fishing part a bit more then the world is good. CC

Signs of the times! Dunno who the author of the following q *&^%$#@!! Betrayed by an 'old phart' finger-stutter. Lemme try that again. As I tried to say these are signs of the time. I don't know the author of the following quote that was just sent to me but I have been trying to say the same thing for years----just neither so elegantly nor so eloquently. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The society of late 20th century America is perhaps the first in human history where most grown men do not routinely bear arms on their persons and boys are not regularly raised from childhood to learn skill in the use of some kind of weapon, either for community or personal defense --- club or spear, broadsword or long bow, rifle or Bowie knife. It also happens to be one of the rudest and crudest societies in history, having jubilantly swept most of the etiquette of speech, table, dress, hospitality, fairness, deference to authority and the relations of male and female and child and elder under the fraying and filthy carpet of politically convenient illusions. With little fear of physical reprisal Americans can be as loud, gross, disrespectful, pushy, and negligent as they please. If more people carried rapiers at their belts or revolvers on their hips it is a fair bet you would be able to go to a movie and enjoy the dialogue from the screen without having to endure the small talk, family gossip and assorted bodily noises that many theater audiences these days regularly emit. Today discourtesy is commonplace precisely because there is no price to pay for it. Samuel Francis

Crushed Keeblers Club crackers with salt & pepper to taste amd LOTS of Tony Chachere Cajun Seasoning. I prepare the breading with all ingredients combined and just roll the fish in it and drop them in my 'Fry Granddaddy' 'til they are golden brown. Some people like to use an egg/milk wash to dip them in before breading. I can take it or leave it. I only use it for warmwater species since I consider trout as inedible unless they are orange-fleshed little natives taken from high altitude streams or lakes. In which case I cook them in butter over a campfire as soon after catching as possible without doing anything to change their natural flavor except for light salting. In my own biased opinion hatchery raised trout are little if any better than shad. Your mileage may vary.

Nope. Just keep him alive!

Terry, Never be afraid to ask for references! Nor check with the state medical board for complaints against a surgeon. Remember, despite the aura (sp? ) of infallibility cultivated by the medical profession they are ultimately no different from an auto repair shop or heating/air conditioning service. They are in the service industry and any who object to being researched must be considered suspect. It's your knee! And I hope you're break dancing in the tailwaters in a few weeks---------errr, several hundred yards downstream.

[quote name='Terry Beeson' Great story that I need to sit down and write one day... "Get 'er done"! I ain't getting no younger you know! Does anyone recall a more pointless thread? I love it!

Help yourself! The "Old Fart' would be honored. It is a subject he is quite passionate on. You gotta watch him close though. He tends to invent 'famous quotations' to fit the situation. His latest is: "Though his coffers be filled with gold how destitute is the man who can find no passion worth risking it all". OF, 2006

gonefishin wrote: <I am probably being DUH but, who is OF?> Whoops! Caught. Mea Maxima Culpa. OF is the 'Old Fart' and is the persona under which I pen political opinion pieces. Occasionally I get off a line that so impresses me that I save it to my quote files. One should never be caught quoting himself however. CC/OF

Perhaps a selection of quotes, by the famous and infamous. will shed some light on the matter. CC ****************************************************************************** "Thank God we don't get as much government as we pay for." - Charles Kettering "The mystery of government is not how Washington works but how to make it stop".-----P.J. O'Rourke "The Constitution does not prohibit the people from making any decision. The Constitution allows for the people to overrule the judiciary, the executive or the legislative branches."---Gov. Milt Romney Norman Thomas and Gus Hall, U.S. Communist Party Candidates, both quit American politics, agreeing that the Republican and Democratic parties by 1970 had adopted every plank of the Communist/Socialist Party and they no longer had an alternate party platform on which to run. "The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But under the name of 'liberalism' they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.------NormanThomas You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered. -- Lyndon Baines Johnson, U.S. President I believe there are more instances of abridgment of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpation . . ." --James Madison "Ignorance and apathy are the principle enemies of freedom, surpassing even evil intent. Misguided good intentions is their greatest ally."---OF, 2006 "Experience teaches us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purpose is beneficent.----The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding."----Justice Brandeis "It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide."---John Adams "Corruptisima republica plurimae leges." (The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.)---Tacitus, Anals III 27 "It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brushfires in peoples' minds".---Samuel Adams "The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be ignited." ---- Plutarch "When the government fears the people, it is liberty. When the people fear the government, it is tyranny."---Thomas Paine "The single certitude in the matter is that anyone who wants to limit in any fashion the right of the citizen to possess, at his own discretion, the means of self-defense is the enemy of free men. No reasoning, no excuses, no good intentions, earnest or feigned, can ameliorate the incontestable fact that the person who would infringe upon the right of individual self defense is in the camp of the enemies of freedom."------OF, 2006

To keep the thread alive I had to answer 'Other' since I live near the Spring River in Arkansas. As a matter of fact I live on the South Fork though I fish the cold water of the Spring more often. I have a passion for 'my' river and it is why I chose to live here rather than nearer the big tailwater rivers. Yes it has a problem with the 'aluminum hatch' in Summer, but it is the only 'natural' trout waters in the state and the biggest spring creek between Pennsylvania and Montana. While I'm not complaining I find it a great wonderment that others haven't 'discovered' the unique aspects of 'my' river. The Spring 'saved my bacon' so many times in the decades when I made the long drive from Texas only to find the tailwaters too high to wade that I eventually came to consider IT my destination and the tailwaters as the lay-backs. It doesn't have the huge fish that the tailwaters do but I think that it soon will. The back-up waters above Dam 3 where the state trout hatchery is located provide such incredible habitat conducive to raising Browns of epic proportions that I think it only a matter of time before some surprised bass fisherman hauls a Brown out of it that will make sports pages across the nation. That's my story and I'ma stickin' to it! Tom

LMF you have recieved a LOT of good advice from some very knowledgeable fishermen. Adding anything will be difficult, but let me try. Dano had a VERY good point. Neophytes often fail to recognize drag. And it's fully as critical when nymphing as when fishing dries----and far more difficult to recognize. So start by getting a good line dressing and using it OFTEN! A line that sinks cannot be mended properly. Period! Give yourself an even break up front by not casting across water with many different current speeds acting on fly, leader and line. Learn to mend and, maybe more importantly, when to mend. If the fly isn't moving at the same speed as the water it's in that is a dead giveaway to the fish. Someone else suggested just watching. Allow me to expand on that theme. Make a trip without even bringing your tackle. Bring a chair instead and spend your time watching and asking questions of the most successful fishermen when they come off of the water. Tell them exactly what you have been doing and why. You will probably be overwhelmed by their earnest efforts to help. As someone else pointed out your fly should be almost on the bottom to be in the trouts window. Spend some serious time experimenting to see how much weight and how much line between fly and indicator is needed to satisfy that most basic requirement. You'll find that both factors require constant adjustment as conditions change. Make them as needed! You want the fly just 'ticking' bottom once every 4-5 feet to be sure it's where the fish will see it. I've been using 'Photo Flow', a darkroom wetting agent, as a means to get flies to sink RIGHT NOW! for years. Any wetting agent, including 'Basic H' from Amway will work---no need to pay exhorbitant sums for flyshop products. Even tiny droplets of dilute baby shampoo or dish soap well massaged into the fly will work fine to get the fly down. Others have pointed out that people often use too much indicator for fly and conditions. Spot on! Some have noted for your edification that anything 'different' done by your strike indicator should be answered by a strike. Let me emphasize that: It has been said that it is alright to put all of your eggs in one basket----as long as you WATCH that basket. Your strike indicator is YOUR basket. If it hesitates, speeds up, burps, farts, rises, falls or seems to appear to even be considering any of those actions in your estimation---raise your rod right now! By doing so you will not only learn to recognize a strike but the concentration will eventually help you develop a 'sixth sense', common to all better nymphers, that tells you better than any visual indication that it's time to strike. You will no doubt fail to understand that sense once developed any better than do those who use it every time they fish. It isn't quantifiable or subject to logical verbalization. It just 'is'. Your task is to acquire it and the suggestions of others and my own feeble efforts is how you do so. Perhaps you're familiar with the old bit of folk wisdom that sez: "Watch your pennies and your dollars will take care of themselves". Flyfishing is like that. It is the tiny details that make up the whole. With any of them left out there is no 'whole'. "The Devil is in the details". HTH, Tom